


No, That Won't Work

by Strelark



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Based off of Katana Zero, Drug Addiction, Gen, Time Shenanigans, You don't need to know anything about it tho, casual racism (human / troll)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:40:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29385711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strelark/pseuds/Strelark
Summary: "You offer up your bare wrist like a starving man offering up an empty soup bowl. As he pushes the liquid into your collapsing veins, you feel a familiar rush as time slows. You hear the mosquito across the room before you see it. You can make out each individual flap of its wings. Time reorients itself, and your doctor is sitting back down in his chair."
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This fic is loosely based off of the fantastic game Katana Zero. You don't need to play it to read the fic, but it gives an excellent aesthetic that I've tried to replicate and I highly recommend it! Updates will usually happen in 2-3 chapter intervals to make up for the shorter chapter lengths.

“Tell me, Mr. Strider, how long have you been having these . . . hallucinations?”

Your head aches as the migraine worsens. “I don’t remember mentioning them to you,” you grit through your teeth.

The bald man sitting before you crosses his legs. “Please, Mr. Strider, I’m only here to help. You’ve given me nothing this session, at least make it worth your own while.”

You shut your eyes behind your shitty sunglasses. The near constant sound of traffic from the highway below you fades to nothing. You catch a whiff of rotting vegetation and sulfur before you are yanked back to reality by the sound of your cell phone going off.

“Sorry doc, gotta cut this sesh short. Shoot me up and I’ll catch you again tomorrow?” You go to stand up from the overstuffed chair you had parked your ass in.

“Mr. Strider. You will not leave until you have my say. This ‘sesh’ will not be cut short. Regardless, you will be busy tonight,” he opens his tacky white and lime-green smoking jacket and produces a plain looking manila envelope. Your breath catches in your throat as your eyes dart to it.

“Now, your medicine.” He stands up and walks to his desk, unlocks a drawer, and removes a small glass vial containing a neon blue liquid. He quickly jabs a syringe into the rubber top of the bottle. Your breath quickens as he walks over to you. You offer up your bare wrist like a starving man offering up an empty soup bowl. As he pushes the liquid into your collapsing veins, you feel a familiar rush as time slows. You hear the mosquito across the room before you see it. You can make out each individual flap of its wings. Time reorients itself, and your doctor is sitting back down in his chair.

“Go straight home after you are finished your work. Do NOT make a scene. Be back here tomorrow morning.”

Your migraine is gone, and you can feel your medicine flowing through your veins. “Sure thing doc, got some Totino’s in the freezer I’ve been dying to get to.” You lie through your teeth as you push open the front door.

Out in the hallway, you punch the elevator button and look at your phone just as it starts to ring again. Egbert. He’s going to invite you to a movie tonight at midnight. You will have time to make it after your work is finished. You accept the call before it goes to voicemail again.

“Yo what’s up this is the sleazy brothel in the sky you’re chattin’ with Madame Murel how can I ‘help’ you tonight baby?” you fire off in a complete monotone.

“Hi Dave! How are you?” a more than cheerful voice comes from the receiver.

“Ah, y’know Egbert. Livin’, lovin’, etc. What’s up?”

“Wanna catch a movie tonight? They’re showing one of your bro’s old flicks at the shitty theatre on 54th.”

“John you know for a goddamn fact that I am always down to watch one of Dirk’s masterpieces. What time?”

“Midnight, they’re doing some sort of indie movie promotional, and they wanted to end the night with a movie from a war hero.” John babbles on as you step into the elevator.

“Seems like his art is more popular now than when he was still kicking. I got some work I need to do but I should be done in time. Meet you there a few minutes before?”

“You know it! I’ll bring the snacks!”

“You’re a saint, Egbert. Catch you later.” You hang up before John can say anything else.

You step out of the high rise and into the neon jungle of New Skaia. Giant billboards advertising shit you can’t afford blink above you as you slip into a nearby ally. Out of your tasteful black hoodie you pull out the manilla envelope. Inside is a piece of paper and a polaroid of a troll paperclipped to it. It doesn’t look like a professional shot, more like someone snapped it surreptitiously as he was sitting at a bus stop. The troll was looking down and reading a newspaper on his lap, making his face hard to distinguish. He had short horns and wasn’t wearing the color of his caste; he wore black jeans and a black sweater emblazoned with a grey symbol that looked like the number 69. Nice. The paper doesn’t have much on it, only a name and a location:

Karkat Vantas. Military housing unit 612. Alternian Proving Ground.

You let out a small sigh. Military installations are a bitch and a half to get into, especially troll ones, but you’ve got nothing but time. You grip your katana and start walking in the direction of the fourth district. Your phone rings again. You look down, the caller ID states RESTRICTED. You answer it.

“Remember, leave no witnesses.”

You hang up.

***

Getting through the front gate was easier than you thought it was going to be. You expected it to take half a dozen conversations with the guards, learning from each attempt until you managed to get the correct lines of dialogue to convince them to let you through. Short of that, you could take them out before they raised any alarm.

As it were, there were no guards at the gate, and it was swung mysteriously open. Okay. You pull up the hood of your jacket and turn your face away from the camera mounted at the corner of the guard station as you walk through the open gate into the proving ground.

You’ve only ever been in APG once before, on more ‘official’ business during the signing of the armistice. It was symbolic drivel, something about wanting to have ‘the last casualty of the war honored’ or some shit. The greyskins love their symbolism, and they had humanity by the balls back then. You didn’t want to go, but you also didn’t want to cause an interstellar incident and respark the war, so.

You walk with confidence towards the housing section of the base. The best way to not bring attention to yourself is to make it seem like you’re supposed to be there. The sun has hardly started to set, so it’s not surprising that there aren’t many trolls out and about you tell yourself. You stride towards the building labeled ‘612’ and casually peer through a window. Thick blackout drapes block your view, but no light is coming from the edges. Target is probably still sleeping in that nasty green sludge that all trolls sleep in. You optimistically try the front door. No dice, locked. The window opens easily enough, though.

Inside is dark. You slip off your shades and your eyes quickly adjust to the dim light emanating from behind the drapes. The room is wrecked. Chairs are knocked over and broken glass litters the floor. Looks like a struggle. You follow the destruction into the kitchen, where a series of bullet holes pepper a table which has been tipped over to form a kind of barricade. There’s another door here. You move towards it. It is silent on the other side. You check the handle. Locked. You kick the door in.

There’s a troll on the other side, with a pistol leveled at your face.

He fires before you can flinch.


	2. Chapter 2

_No, that won’t work._

You walk with confidence towards the housing section of the base. The best way to not bring attention to yourself is to make it seem like you’re supposed to be there. The sun has hardly started to set, so it’s not surprising that there aren’t many trolls out and about. You stride towards the building labeled ‘612’ and go straight for the window. It opens silently and you slip in.

Inside is dark. You slip off your shades and your eyes quickly adjust to the dim light emanating from behind the drapes. The room is wrecked. Chairs are knocked over and broken glass litters the floor. Looks like a struggle. You follow the destruction into the kitchen, where a series of bullet holes pepper a table which has been tipped over to form a kind of barricade. You move quickly to the door, and without hesitation, you kick it down and immediately duck. A shot rings out above you as the startled troll aims for where your face would have been. Your sword glints in the light from the muzzle flash and his head hits the ground and rolls. Dull yellow blood splatters the walls.

You feel your meds course through your body as you take a quick look around the room. It’s a small hallway that leads into a set of stairs going down. You hear a commotion; the gunshot seems to have startled someone downstairs. You run for the stairs as a head peaks around the corner at the bottom. The troll woman doesn’t have time to pull up her shotgun before you flashstep the rest of the way, appearing directly behind her. A quick jab in between the ribs stops her heart as you’re coated in a gout of olive blood.

“What’s all the racket?” you hear someone shout from the next room over.

A quick look at your surroundings reveals a rather ordinary looking basement. Washer, dryer, bench press, recently stabbed troll, nothing out of the ordinary. With all the guile of a cartoon character, you hide behind the door right as a burly looking troll busts through. Rustblood by the looks of the nasty cut on his shoulder. You make quick work of him and turn to face the room he just came from.

Sitting inside, tied to a chair, is another troll. He’s out cold, looks like he was on the receiving end of one of the rustblood’s meaty fists. You notice a bloody sickle on the ground next to him; the color matches the dude you just impaled. You walk over to him, katana held loosely at your side. You rummage around in your pocket for the polaroid. Yup, this is your man. You grab the unconscious troll by the horn, and pull his head up to compare, just in case, when you freeze. You know him.

The troll groans as his eyes flick open. No doubt about it now. You remember him from the armistice. You shook his hand. The two emissaries of peace, the media called you. You didn’t bother ever learning his name. Karkat Vantas takes this moment of hesitation as an opportunity to spit in your face.

“If you fucking think that I’m not gonna go down fighting to my last. . . Wait, who the fuck are you?” He takes a moment to look at you and the rainbow of blood adorning your clothes. “Don’t suppose you’re here to rescue me, huh?”

“No.”

“Just my shitty ass luck I guess. First I get jumped in the middle of my soap by some dudes who want to kill me, then some other fucking dude decides that they aren’t doing a good enough job and comes in, sword blazing. Jegus fuck.” He continues to rant as you stare at him in stunned silence. Even with the threat of death inches away from his neck, this troll will not shut up.

“Why did they want you dead?” you manage to get in in between your captive’s breaths.

“Who the hell knows? They barge in, interrupt my show, and tie me to a fucking chair in my basement, shouting random-ass questions in my face. I managed to get a swipe at the big guy with my sickle, shit-all that did to the lunk.”

“What were they asking you?”

“I dunno, stuff about my deployment. What I saw. Should all be public record in the war office, no clue why they were asking me in such a polite manner.” He trails off, fuming, and takes a hard look at your face. “Do I know you?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, I remember now. At the peace meeting.” He freezes. “You’re the asshole who killed my ex.”

That catches you off guard.

“Yeah, now I fucking remember. You’re the big damn hero of humanity who killed Gamzee Makara.”

“Didn’t think that was public knowledge.”

“It isn’t. Didn’t want to let the public know that one of their top boys was shown the business end of a cutter by some lowly human. The brass showed me the fucking snuff film they had of you cutting off his head as a courtesy. They didn’t know that we broke up a few days before. No skin off my scrote that you offed the motherfucker. Asshole probably deserved it. Fucking brutal how you did it though, didn’t think humans had the strength to decapitate two people at once, especially when one of them was-“

Your stomach clenches as your fist clips the troll’s chin, knocking his head back violently. Anything to shut him up.

“Don’t you have something better to do than knock me around?” Karkat spits.

“I do, in fact.” You drive your blade through his forehead.

_No, that won’t work._

***

“What’s all the racket?” you hear someone shout from the next room over.

You dip behind the door as the rustblood pushes through. The next moment you push your sword through his back.

Karkat is tied to the chair. You give him a firm smack across the face to rouse him and dodge the bloody spittle that he shoots back at you.

“Karkat Vantas. Yes, we know each other. And yes, I _am_ here to rescue you.”


End file.
